How Not To Write Fanfiction: A Non Guide
by The One Called Demetra
Summary: -"Fed up with bad fanfiction? Beginning to think you're the only one with any taste? Wondering if there's any hope? You are not alone!" Please don't take this seriously. Now newly introduced by the author, because I've always really wanted to say that.
1. Just Your Friendly Neighborhood Intro

**READ THIS FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK READ THIS.**

**THIS IS NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.**

**PLEASE STOP TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY.**

**GOD KILLS A PUPPY WHEN YOU TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY. PLEASE, THINK OF THE PUPPIES.**

**If you are reading this unfic as anything besides entertainment or a way to blow off steam, then you are doing it wrong, and killing puppies. You disgust me, you filthy puppy murderer.**

Hello, kind reader. I'm Dem. I review things. I decided reviewing things wasn't enough and wrote this. I regretted it. For reasons I cannot quite fathom, I did not remove it once I did. Instead, I added this new introduction, on the day of July 12th, 2010, because no matter how far back I try to bury this damn thing, people are still reading it and are still murdering puppies.

So. To introduce this. What you are perhaps about to read, providing you do not press the back button immediately after arriving at the introduction, is a guide. You may find this guide amusing, in which case you are doing it right. You may find this guide informative, in which case you may want to seek help, because if any advice I offer is actually useful to you, there is something wrong with you. You may find this guide wounding to your self-esteem because you are convinced that some sections apply to you.

The chances that you are wrong are very, very high. Please keep this in mind.

You may find this guide extremely offensive. If so, you are doing it wrong, because you are taking it seriously.

You may find this guide to be the ultimate gospel of all those opposed to badfic. If so, you are doing it wrong, because you are taking it seriously.

You may find this guide to be a load of pretentious bullshit produced by an obsessive psychobitch. You are probably correct.

**Bonus! The How Not To Write Drinking Game! **Take a shot every time Dem calls someone stupid, or any variation thereof. Whole bottle if she calls anybody retarded. WARNING: The author is not responsible for any liver failure which may occur in the following chapters.


	2. The Taxonomy of Mary Sue

Step One: Mary Sues

Ah, the Mary Sue: abused by the amateur (them), hated by the reader (you), and delighted in by the flamer (me). Oddly enough, Mary Sues are almost scarce next to the Mary Sue _parodies _in some sections, and sometimes are actually more tolerable than said parodies, but this particular archive is all but riddled with the little leeches. Know thy enemy, right?

There are three basic types of Sues. There are, of course, numerous subsections, but most of them can be sorted into the following categories:

The Perfect Sue: A Sue with absolutely no boundaries. She's a genius. She knows about fairies. She is, of course, drop-dead gorgeous. She wins Artemis's heart. She's a hybrid. She has some sort of unexplained powers. Her clothes are like, sooo trendy. Widely regarded as the most hated of Sues, she is also the most easily recognizable. Personally, I think the authors of such Sues are so ridiculously out there that it's almost not worth the trouble of typing out a rude review, but great if you want practice. Luckily, they are few in numbers.

The Self-Insert Sue: She's you, except better. These run in herds in the LotR section, and while less common in the AF wing of fanfic, they still grate my nerves like some sort of metaphorical cheese grater. The neophyte of Suespotting may miss her, because she seems to be fairly well rounded. That is not to say she does not deserve to be doused in oil and then burned at the stake. This is because, while basing characters on real people can help flesh them out well, self-inserts are wish fulfillment in the form of a character. I mean, look at Bella Swan. She has the author's looks, dream guy, tastes, manner of speech, ambitions, you name it, and she still doesn't have a personality.

The Cliché Sue: It's not that the character is bad—if you put all her traits on paper she wouldn't sound so horrible. She's not particularly beautiful or intelligent or interesting. But she somehow spawns clichés like you wouldn't believe. She's adopted by the Fowls. She's Artemis's arranged marriage. She's a girl at St. Bartleby's, either because she's pulling a Mulan, or because there was some mistake that nobody bothered to correct (she usually ends up sharing a dorm with Artemis, too). She is probably the most common Sue of all in this section.

Common subsections include:

-Daughter!Sue (who is astoundingly often named Diana. Yes, we get it. Diana is the Roman form of Artemis. You're terribly clever, yes, we understand)

-Adopted!Sue (getting very common of late. Angeline Fowl apparently has a lot of teenage girls who are 'like daughters to her')

-Girl-At-St-Bartelby's!Sue (also known as Artemis-Goes-To-Public-School!Sue, a cheap plot device to turn Artemis into one of those roving hordes of idiotic males that frequent public schools)

-The Half-Fairy!Sue (these are like half-elves from the LotR archive, as in, a freakin' epidemic)

-The less—or more, depending on how you look at it—frequently-seen Canon!Sue (you know, like when Artemis suddenly a good-looking, fashion-conscious saint, and Minerva is a dumb bimbo who exists solely to be obnoxious and make Holly look better in comparison? More extensively covered in the Canon Rape section)

-Any combinations of the above. The little bugger breeds amongst themselves. Half-fairy!Sues that go to St. Bartleby's. Yes, you should start running, right now.

I will not insult your intelligence by offering advice as to how to not write them. There are numerous online guides much more serious than this one to Mary Sues and avoiding them. Go look at one of those.

Bottom line: avoid Mary Sues at all costs. Suethors shall be summarily tracked with bloodhounds and thrown into a pit of fire.


	3. The World's Biggest Threat: Shipping

Step Three: Obsessive Shipping

In my opinion, the biggest threat to fanfiction as we know it.

In general, my impression of the shipping of AF is something like…holy shit, these people are freakin' lunatics. I haven't seen such madness since _Avatar: the Last Airbender_, which had shipping wars to rival that of the Romione/Harmony business with HP a couple years ago_._ Actually, I shouldn't say Obsessive Ship_ping_, because it's really only one ship—no prizes for guessing which.

I have a serious bone to pick with A/H.

My main gripe isn't anything physical. Big surprise there, right? I mean, I think it's kind of creepy for a fourteen year old kid and an eighty year old fairy (age correlation or no age correlation, he's still a teenager and she's still a grown woman) to be getting it on, yeah, but primarily my problem with A/H is the fanon.

Yep. _You_ people.

The A/H clichés are numerous and gag-inducing, and these are only some of them:

-They're randomly sitting around and Holly realizes how much Artemis has _changed_, and suddenly she loves him. Then they make out for a while.

-Sex—random, unexplained, physically awkward sex and then some irrelevant accompanying events.

-Choose any—ANY—event or scenario under the sky. Have them kiss spontaneously. Insert passionate declaration of love here.

-They've been dating for weeks/months/years and suddenly Artemis decides that they should break up, except he didn't mean it. And of course there's NOTHING anybody can think of that resembles that, right? Whoever is letting Twilight fangirls into the AF archive needs to be shot. Now.

-They have an affair. There's a lot of angst, sex, and moar angst. But, OMG, it's forbidden! Don't ask why, it just is. The EEEEEEEEVIIIIIL Council mind-wipes Artemis and exiles Holly! Why? Because government officials are EEEEEEEEVIIIIIL, of course—everyone knows that.

-A dance. Dance!fics, oh god. I'm not even going to talk about them here.

-Actually, pretty much any romantic comedy set up with names and elements halfheartedly thrown in, and the line 'Artemis's elf-kissing days were definitely not over' in some way, shape, or form.

The most common fanfic in general is some sort of random A/H thing. These types completely disregard, um, everything that was ever considered canon, and just have them fitted nicely into the forbidden love stereotype (ignoring the fact that there is very little forbidden-ness about Human/Fairy relationships. This is just random fanon tripe to make A/H unnecessarily dramatic). Ick.

Okay. I'm done. Bottom line, Artemis and Holly are Artemis and Holly, not John and Jane Doe. They are not your typical lovelorn romance novel stars. Do not write them as such.

Next, H/T. This one really baffles me. What could have ever possibly given you the idea that there was ANYTHING between them? At all? They barely ever even talk. The only thing that remotely suggests a relationship between them—and the keyword here is 'remotely'—is that they were in the academy together. It's convenient, but by no means logical. Come on, there's more evidence for Chix/Holly than H/T. I don't have a problem with H/T per se…but only in the same sense that I don't have a problem with non-canon ships.

A/M. My opinions on the fandom insanity around Minerva and her with Artemis aside, I don't have any strong opinion here—oh, except this: A/M is not canon. A/M is a plot device at best for introducing romance to the books. Stop treating it like a realistic rival for A/H when writing Minerva. And why is it that fics about these two so generic? There's not enough of them to really consider it a cliché, but still. Really, precious few A/M authors, if two genii had a relationship they would do more than sit around in cafes and blush and talk about general genius-y things that you actually know nothing about. Really. At least pick something different from the Theory of Relativity.

On crackships: I love crackships. I love them to death, though mostly in other fandoms where age and species restrictions aren't as dramatic. I love them because a talented author can take any two characters and have them romantically involved with complete plausibility. However, I also hate them, for more or less the same reason: bad authors who write crackships make little pieces of my dark, corrupted soul sob and disintegrate in horror. So please, crackship responsibly.

On Artemis/ Butler: …

…

…

I'm trying to think of something to say and I can't. Interpret that as you will. Anyway…

Bottom line: where were you when they were handing out common sense? Hiding behind the door? Regardless, go out and buy some, they're having a sale at Wal-Mart, and besides: you need it.


	4. A Grammar Nazi Hijacks the Guide

Step Four: Grammar and Spelling

Okay, guys. I know that most of you think that grammar is for English essays and spelling is for spell-check to take care of, but let me tell you right now, grammarless stories basically have giant neon signs that say 'FLAME THIS AUTHOR' on them, and spell-check is about as effective as a drunken parakeet with a keyboard. Said drunken parakeet is the one responsible for every instance of the word 'defiantly' appearing in the text incorrectly, which could be easily averted if people simply learned that the word is spelled _definitely. _With an i. Not an a. There is no a in the word definitely and if they still taught spelling in schools you would know that.

There is only one thing you need to know here:

Grammar and spelling are important.

Seriously. Fucking. Important.

To put it in a less vulgar way, if you have any self-respect, you'll learn it. It's virtually impossible to be taken seriously if you can't spell and still haven't learned that the first word in a sentence is capitalized. Even a _bad _story will seem decent at first glance if everything is spelled correctly and the direct quotes all end with commas. I am completely unable to have sympathy for anybody claiming to not be very good at grammar, for the simple reason that I, a non-native English speaker, have had virtually perfect grammar since the age of twelve. If I can do it, so can you. All it takes is a short trip to Google. It's not that hard.

If you are too brain dead to proofread your story yourself, get an effing beta. I'm sure this is borderline impossible for you, since it would involve waiting for a couple days before you get to share the awe-inspiring wonder that is your story with the world, but believe me, _it helps._ Betas are not that hard to find. 90% of the site has a beta profile. If you're really stumped and don't mind being verbally abused, ask me. If you want to inflict your story on somebody, do it to a beta first. And_ listen_ to them.

There is nothing else to be said about grammar and spelling. Just use it. Or else.


	5. Recycle, Just Not the Plot

Step Five: Plot Recycling

Not only from other fics—the books, too.

For example, I am extremely tired of Opal. We had three books, and a guarantee of at least another of her in canon. Somebody else, please. Opal of book two was pretty awesome, book four she was okay, but getting tired, and in book six she was getting seriously repetitive. And she's already done three of the most typical Evil Genius plots, take over the world, destroy the world, and become all powerful (in that order. Or maybe the latter is actually the former. Bloody time traveling…). What's wrong with making up your own villain? Some of the best fics I've ever seen involve original villains.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, Opal is just so easy to abuse. Just your average evil villain, no creativity required. 90% of all Opal-is-the-villain fics are exactly the same: Opal and Opal meet and take over the world/kill Artemis/destroy the world/some such similarity. This is pretty much what book seven guarantees. How 'bout while we're all sitting around waiting for the next one, you people write something containing actual originality, hmm?

A different form of plot recycling is the A/H-turned-generic-romance-novel. This is the most common, and the most annoying. Artemis and Holly go to a Valentine's Day dance. Holly gets with Trouble and Artemis is jealous, but doesn't want to admit it. Holly is bitching about how 'forbidden' their 'love' is. And so on, for more examples, just go on IMBD and read the synopsis of every romantic comedy ever. If you don't see why this is annoying yet, go back and reread step three.

This isn't just the 'be original' rant, either, this is the 'certain clichés are good to use because they offer a comfort zone but when we're reading the same fic with alternating levels of fail it gets ridiculous' rant. Once again, the lesson here is moderation. Having flesh-eating purple aliens from Pluto descend on earth and attempt to kidnap the Prime Minister of Russia by using a banana ray would be original, but it'd still be terrible. Unless you had some sort of crazy-effective gift for making batshit insane ideas work, which I have actually encountered in some very rare instances.

Bottom line: if a reviewer guesses exactly what's going to happen next chapter, it's probably time to rethink your plot


	6. Can It Be? Actual Writing Advice?

Step Six: Prose

Yes, it's fanfic. Yes, it's just for fun. Yes, your writing doesn't have to be perfect.

But that doesn't mean you can go around writing stuff like this:

'One day, Artemis woke up. He got up and ate breakfast. He looked in the mirror and noticed his mismatched eyes. He thought of Holly. Gee golly gosh, he sure liked Holly. He suddenly realized that he was in love with her.'

It doesn't mean that you can fit ten chapters worth of plot into one. It doesn't mean you can neglect simple rules of writing, such as show, don't tell—which I don't personally agree with, as there _are _times when you tell instead of show, but that doesn't mean you can write all your emotion like 'Holly felt sad. She was in love with Artemis and he didn't love her back. She was so depressed that she started to cut herself'. It doesn't mean that you can go right at it without even looking at a few writing articles. It doesn't mean you can ignore basic conventions. It doesn't mean you can write purple prose and expect that to just be fine and dandy, either, which is this:

'Artemis's one intense, soul-piercing icy-cerulean eye contrasted with his other mismatched warm, cinnamon colored one as he gazed into Holly's similar orbs. His slick raven locks framed his moonlight-pale face and his—'

(At this point, the author could no longer type due to laughing too hard, and as a result had to go into the other room and breathe deeply for several minutes while suppressing further giggles before returning)

For an actually published example of absolutely nauseating purple prose, may I suggest the Inheritance Cycle of the Twilight series for reference?

But yeah. You get my point. Writing has rules, and if you're going to make your work publicly available, you should make an effort. We all have to start somewhere, and nobody's writing is perfect—but the fact is, what would pass for barely decent in the professional world is pretty damn good in fanfiction, even by my standards, and I can guarantee you that the majority of badfic authors are not badfic authors out of lack of talent, they're badfic authors because they're lazy and/or blinded with wish fulfillment.


	7. Summaries: What Not To Do

Step Seven: Summaries

Yes, Bobby. People _do _judge your work on the basis of the couple words you use to describe it. That's why knowing how to write a good summary is important. What's even more important, however, is knowing how _not _to write a _bad _summary.

Ten Things Not To Do When Writing a Summary:

1. Space-waster words like 'well' and 'basically'. You only have a couple hundred characters to write a summary—we understand that we're not going to get a synopsis. If you're truly talented at cramming a shitload of meaning into a few words, then great, but even if you can't, there are other ways to write a great summary. Quote a good bit from it, for example. Hell, even "Character A/Character B. Oneshot, fluff" is passable.

2. "I suck at summaries". Hey, buddy! Guess what? _We don't care about your summary writing skills. _Really. We don't. What more, if you're too incompetent to write a good summary, you're too incompetent to write a good story. Don't ruin it for yourself.

3. "Better than it sounds". Because if you actually need to write it, then no, it's not.

4. Nicknames. How many times have I seen somebody refer to Artemis in a summary as Arty? Far too many. For the love of god, stop it. It's horribly unprofessional and disgustingly fangirly.

5. Chatspeak. This just makes me rage. RAGE I TELL YOU. RAAEEEG.

6. Not summarizing and instead choosing to blabber about stupid crap. My opinions on people who refuse to keep their traps shut are contained in the next chapter.

7. SLASH! NOT SLASH! SLASH IF YOU WEAR YOUR SLASH GOGGLES! I AM INCAPABLE OF DENOTING THE ABSENCE OR PRESENCE OF HOMOSEXUAL PAIRINGS WITHOUT RAPING CAPSLOCK! YAY!

8. Asking questions. Most people say this is a good thing that makes readers want to know more, but I disagree. I think it sounds horribly cheesy. When I'm actually looking for stuff to read rather than just a click-everything-and-review-it-spree, I rarely look twice at these. It gets especially facepalm-worthy when the questions have obvious answers. "Will they admit their feelings?" Yes, they will. "Can Haven be saved?" Yes, it can. "Will she realize it before it's too late?" _Yes, for the last time yes, she will, now stop asking._

9. "This is my first story—" We don't care. "—so please be nice." No.

10. And the crown of irritating summary tics goes to…"R&R". Oh good lord how I hate this. First off, the meaning itself: read and review. Listen. We'll read if the summary sounds good. And we'll review if we have something to say. Using my farcefic I Will Not, I discovered that people are actually _less _likely to review when told to do so. But what gives this little phrase my utmost disdain is its utter lack of meaning. I can respect 'Please read and review', even in a summary. It's a request. A pointless one, but at least it's genuine. 'R&R' is just one of those stupid things you stick in because _god _knows why, maybe you're used to it, maybe you're just that desperate, who knows. It's completely meaningless. And I know that, too, because I've actually seen this on _ending _author notes—as in, the reader has already read and has a chance to review. I don't know about you, but unless there's some stuff that seriously needs to be said, I don't review solely out of spite. This nonsense really needs to stop.


	8. On Running Your Big Fat Mouth

Step Eight: Author Notes

With the advent of the internet, chat rooms, IMs, texting and the like, we have given rise to a new generation of communication.

Another thing we've given rise to is a generation of mooks who don't know when to keep their big fat flapping mouths _shut._

The golden rule of author notes is this: _we don't care. _Truly, we don't. We don't give a damn about your personal life. We don't care about your vacation. We don't care about your evil math teacher. Well, I'm sure somebody out there does—but most of us sure as hell don't. Go tell it to your friends over PMs, don't torment your readers. Unless you are so groin-grabbingly well-known and followed that literally hundreds of people are waiting with baited breath for news of you, most of your author noting is pretentious, narcissistic and totally irrelevant.

Herein lies an incomplete list of things of things we really, truly, honestly do not care about:

-Friends, IRL or OL, to whom you are dedicating the chapter.

-Why the update was late (honestly, nobody is going to lynch you because the drabble you promised yesterday arrived today. Really.)

-Your muse. (Schizophrenia and split-personality disorder are serious problems. Which is why I don't understand why people feel the need to project them on other people.)

-Your computer problems.

-How bad exams are.

-How much you hate [x] character. (And by [x] character I mean Minerva)

-Where you got the idea for the fic from (_Acceptable:_ this drabble came to me in the form of mutant plot bunny. _Unacceptable_: So I was lying in bed last night and couldn't sleep so I got up to make myself some hot chocolate with marshmallows and I was sitting at the kitchen table staring out the window when I realized that it was already sunrise and I thought 'OMG a sunrise is so totally like…')

-Claimers. This is pure pretentious nonsense. The author will go 'Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Claimer: But I _do_ own Mary Sue! Please don't use her without permission, because I really think I've created such an UHMAYZING character that people will want to steal her.'

Now, some things that _don't _make me want to beat myself mercilessly with something heavy until I pass out when I encounter them in author notes:

-The disclaimer. I concede this point only due to overwhelming majority. I personally think disclaimers are tiresome and wholly pointless.

-Who beta'd the chapter and other assorted credits

-A request for a beta

-Why the update was late if the lateness is measured in several months or years.

-Warnings, spoiler alerts, pairings, etc.

Otherwise, _shut up. _Just shut your stupid mouth already and get on with the story. In the same way we don't care what color your eyes are and whatever "cute" (oh, gag me) way you'll use to conceal your age on your profile (for the record, I'm more or less convinced that every person who says something like 'over ten and under a hundred' for their age is thirteen. No exceptions.), we don't want to hear it. We want to be entertained. That's it. Write your autobiography elsewhere, please, and don't torment us with your self-indulgent lip-flapping.


	9. Of Nonconventional Fanfic and Hypocrisy

Step Nine: Non-conventional Fanfics

Ah, the non-conventional fanfic…there are so, so many ways these can go wrong. Awkward wording. Not being funny. Trying to hard to be funny. Even worse canon rape than usual.

My problem here is not that they exist, but rather, in what a sorry state they exist.

I mean, you've got 'How To Annoy' lists that go something like this:

--

'_Chapter One: Ways to annoy Artemis Fowl_

_Authors Note: Hope you enjoy!!! I had some funny ideas and thought I should write them down!!!_

_Poke him._

_Laugh at him._

_Tell him Holly married Trouble._

_Authors Note: Lol, hey guys!!! Hope you liked!!! Review or I won't put up the next chappie!!!_

_--_

_Chapter Two: Ways to annoy Butler_

_Authors Note: Sorry the update is late!!! I was busy with exams and my computer was acting stupid!!! Here's chappie two!!!_

_Poke him._

_Laugh at him._

_Authors Note: Sorry it's so short!!! I'm having really bad writers block!!! Please send in ideas and review!!!'_

_--_

It's rather pathetic how little I'm exaggerating. People who actually thought the above was funny: please hit yourself over the head with something heavy swiftly and repeatedly until you're sure the stupid has been knocked out.

Alright, I got a bit carried away there. Now, I'm treading shaky ground by talking about non-conventional fanfic for the simple reason that over half of what I write is exactly that kind. I've done talkshows, I've done lists, I've done mild crackfic, I've done parodies, just about the only thing I haven't done and will never do is an IM fic. The difference between me and all the other badfic authors is that I _know_ I'm a badfic author and am trying to fix it. So let's ignore my utter hypocrisy and move on…

As demonstrated above, lists are only funny if they encompass more things than the average child's list of ways to annoy their siblings. Poking people, laughing at them, stealing something they care about and the like would annoy anybody. I'm spelling it out here, come on. Creativity is not that difficult a concept.

And then you've got IM fics. Oh, god. I loathe these with a passion. They aren't so common in this section, but in the Twilight (ick) and Percy Jackson archives these mutated balls of fail run rampant. There's no way to have a decent IM fic. None. If there is, it exists in an alternate dimension where failure is a good thing. If for some reason you've got it into your head to write one for this archive, then for the love of cheese, don't! Think of the children! There is sanity at stake here! Don't even consider it for a moment, because my trusty flame thrower and I can smell fail that prominent from miles away.

Next, talkshows…gray area, if you ask me. These tend to be either terrible or amazing. I've seen both varieties and frankly, it's easy to go in either direction. I've had several of mine go the 'terrible' way. The only advice I can give to people who don't want to follow me is to ask decent questions.

Not a Decent Question: What's your favorite color? (Astoundingly often seen for such an idiotic question)

Also Not a Decent Question: Are you in love with [x]? (Especially if it's painfully obvious that yes, they ARE in love with [x])

Not a Decent Question As Well: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? (Clever variations are okay)

And do remember that OOC counts for talkshows as well. It's one thing to interview AF characters and an entirely different one to interview people who share names with AF characters (Example: Artemis, if asked if he and Holly have a relationship, would not stutter and blush and deny it. I haven't seen a particular fic that does this, but I have a sneaking suspicion that somewhere out there, somebody wrote a fic and asked that question and did it terribly).

Bottom line: at least TRY to be funny.

Bottom line the second: Dem doesn't need to be told how many of her own non-rules she's broken in this section. She knows and is headdesking repeatedly as she types.


	10. Kingdom: Mary Sue, Phylum: Self Insert

Step Ten: Self-Inserts

I don't think I covered this particular aspect of Suedom in chapter two, so I will go into slightly more depth here.

It used to be that all Sues were self-inserts. Oh, but not any more. Mary Sue is adaptable, and this sad, pathetic creature has mutated into many varieties, but self-insertion remains a prominent outlet of fail in the fandom.

There are four things to remember about self-inserts.

1) Self-inserts are only okay when they are well written.

2) Self-inserts are never well written.

3) If a self-insert is well written, it ceases to be self-insert and becomes a character.

4) A self-insert will only become a character if it is more than a self-insert.

This does not apply to all Mary Sues because we will still recognize a Sue as a Sue even if she is well written, and we will still hate her accordingly.

Self inserts come in many forms, but at the bottom it's all just psychological need. It's…pretty pathetic, if you ask me, but pretty easy to categorize. They come in two basic flavors; blatant and subtle. Blatant ones are far more annoying but actually farther away from the true self insert. These are recognizable by being the only character with a real personality—the suspiciously realistic, so to speak. This is often because the author is projecting aspects of their personality (or rather, aspects of personality that they think they have) onto the character and only getting the unimportant bits in them. A character who hates being called short (or some other quirkeeeeeeee!1!!1!1 tic like that) and likes to write is almost definitely this type. Almost all Sue-hunter characters are this type. Most characters who are authors are this type, come to think of it, though some come into being accidentally by dint of the author relating too much to the character and becoming them while leaving the others to just kind of hang around.

And then there's the subtle kind. Hoo boy. This is the sort of thing that is popular because it benefits the reader as well as the writer. We're talking Bella Swan here. We're talking freaking _Eragon_ here. Vaguely described, ideal personality with romanticized flaws, often a deadpan snarker—it's sad, really, though expected considering this is fanfiction. You know how it's a bad idea to get attached to your characters and treat them like children rather than tools, because if you do your story will inevitably go to hell in a handbasket? Well, this is that, taken to the extreme.

Bottom line: Thou shalt consider characters people, not objects to channel thy wish fulfillment.


	11. The Sound of Music, or, you know, not

Step Eleven: Songfics

Oh, lord. Songfics.

I detest them. Know why? There's no good reason to write a songfic. At all. Posting the song title and artist at the beginning of the writing is fine, but most people don't consider that a songfic. Anything else just mucks things up.

The thing with songfics is…you might want to mentally prepare yourself for this…_nobody cares about the song_. Really. No lies. Especially if you're using modern popular music.

However, if you do decide to do a songfic, there's one rule to follow. One single, solitary rule. Stick to it and you're fine. Know what it is? I bet you can guess. No? Okay, fine. This all-important, godly rule is…

_Forget the song. _

Write the fic as you want to write it and add in the lyrics later, if you're so very desperate to put 'Songfic' in the summary. Don't go around staring at the lyrics thinking how to make the writing work for it. That's going down the same road as getting attached to characters you're writing. If anything, tweak the lyrics to fit the writing better. Well, actually, that probably breaks some sort of copyright infringement law, but then, what kind of sad, pathetic lawyer stalks this site for something sue-able?

Here, at least, you can trust me. I speak from experience. Story time, everybody: I was every bit the retarded badfic writer my first few weeks here, and holy _shit_ you should have seen the stuff I came up with. Among those were—you guessed it—songfics that tried to pander to the song. Believe me, they were like horror films with a moral: don't write like this, EVAR.

Now, another problem with songfics is that untalented writers will be listening to the song, get an idea for the fic, and write the fic with the song in mind. Not only will the lyrics influence the writing—but the song will leech all the emotion from the writing. Badfic writers will consider the song lyrics to be a suitable replacement for writing well, and it _isn't. _Most writers, however, are incapable of making the distinction. Most readers, however, are.

And _no,_ recommending that the reader listen to the song while reading isn't good enough.

But that, of course, is concerning songfics. There's also these retarded 300-word…_things _that basically change song lyrics slightly to fit the books. I'm not pointing fingers—oh, who the hell am I bullshitting, of course I am—but just because the sappy romance song says 'Artemis' instead of 'He' or 'George' or 'Tom' doesn't mean that it's your own work. It is not. It is plagiarism and sounds exactly like the original song, except with the beat off.

And do remember that song lyrics in no way account for story length. A fic three lines long with five paragraphs of lyrics is still a story three lines long. Stories three lines long do not belong on this site and will be met with according flamethrowers.


	12. Intermission: HNTWF, Condensed Version

**Because somebody asked me to. No smiting, please.**

_And the Author spoke all these words, saying: 'I am the Author, your God... _

Thou shalt have no other personal fantasy before canon.

Thou shalt not take my characters in vain.

Thou shalt remember the canon and keep it holy.

Thou shalt honor thy beta and thy reviewers.

Thou shalt not make use of a Mary Sue.

Thou shalt not indulge in Fanatical Shipping.

Thou shalt not plagiarize.

Thou shalt not bear false reviews against thy neighbor, be it positive or negative.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors reviews.

Thou shalt always consider _quality._


	13. On Research

Step Twelve: Research

Research is important. But not defining.

It's virtually suicide for me to say this, I know, but I'm not talking about the importance of research when writing an original novel. Just fanfic. I mean, it goes without saying that not doing your homework when writing something of your own is a dick move, since you'll probably end up like Meyer (who contradicted just about everything we know about biology in favor of her personal fantasies) or Paolini (who has made so many crimes against literature that a lack of research looks tiny by comparison), except not nearly as rich and slightly more pathetic.

This is common sense. But AF isn't exactly known for its adherence to the laws of physics. Colfer makes great use of pseudo-science, which falls apart whenever anybody with experience sees it, but it fools children and young teenagers well enough to work. This is, of course, the best way to do an AF fanfic, but since I'm addressing morons who need to know how _not_ to write—and people looking for a laugh, you guys don't count—I won't even bother. I mean, for the love of God, there's effing _time travel_ in these books now.

What I'm saying is that while it's certainly nice to get the science/magic right, it won't save a bad story and it won't damn a good one.

Unless, of course, by 'Research' you mean small, cultural things that will be spotted by anybody that isn't American. In that case, ilex-ferox put it perfectly:

"I shall, unfortunately, never forget the writer who thought Helsinki was in Ireland. Then there are the ones who think the dollar is Ireland's currency, that the Irish drive Chevrolets and Hummers, don't realize that public school means something entirely different in the British Isles and, to add 'authenticity', use an online translator to produce Minerva's dialogue - at least that last [one] can be hilarious."

In which case, it _will_ kill a story, it will kill it messily, and the killing will usually come in the form of my flamethrower, or possibly that of ilex-ferox.


	14. Minor Quibbles

Step Thirteen: Minor Quibbles

Because even I'm not audacious enough to make all of these separate chapters just to extend the chapter count.

_1. Genii/Geniuses_

You know a funny thing? I have only seen the word 'genii' used in two places: the Lost Colony and a number of AF fics.

And a part of me has to wonder…why, exactly, is the supposedly correct plural 'genii' so narrowly used? Is it perhaps possible that Colfer was wrong? (Admittedly, he might have been using the word as such because it would make sense for those particular characters to use it, but considering that AF is a children's series, probably not). Is it really right?

Answer: according to Google, several published novels, and common sense, it isn't, so stop throwing around the damn word like the mere act of typing it will increase your IQ. Which is what I'm complaining about: pretentious bullshit. If you've always used it because you honestly think it's the correct way to say it, then good for you. But the pretentious bullshit needs to stop.

And yes, I know that this shouldn't be in 'Minor Quibbles' so much as it should be in 'Miniscule, Completely Pointless Quibbles' but, still…enough with the pretentious bullshit.

_2. Lying reviews_

Yes, goddammit, I'm complaining about reviews. Try and stop me, world.

And not just 'omggzz this is sooo awsum u haff 2 updat soon!11!1'. Reviews like that are generally accepted as being written by irredeemable idiots and not worth a second glance. No, what really gets under my skin is truly, honestly, 4 srs AWFUL stories that have pages and pages of gushing, literate reviews given by fairly respectable writers. Very inconvenient for me, seeing as recipients of said pages of reviews get ego inflations that make it much harder for me to make them see reason. And it's nigh impossible as it is, believe me.

I have a theory: I believe this disproportionate review count/quality is here because the grand majority of the fandom is comprised of A/H fangirls. I have studied these strange creatures at length, and have concluded that the general mentality of one is something along the lines of, 'Horribly written A/H is still A/H, and A/H is just so _fucking awesome_ that I'll take any form of it whatsoever, no matter how poorly written, cliché, or just plain bad it may be'. Flipping through the reviews of certain horrible A/H crapfics in my community (yes, _my_, for the exceptionally dimwitted few of you who don't understand sock puppet account) proves this theory to at very least have some merit.

This is why I have labeled shipping as the greatest threat to fanfiction. Out of all the threats to fanfiction there are, fanatical shipping causes by far the most collateral damage.

Almost, but not quite, rivaling the lying reviewers in the facepalm department are the morons who _believe_ the lying reviewers. Celebrating the unfortunate death of Common Sense (Not to mention his wife, Logic, and two daughters, Reason and Discretion), these people (i.e., almost every new writer on the site) simply do not understand that on the other end of the praising, squealing review could quite possibly be a person with a) no taste, b) a nice, considerate personality, or c) a twisted sense of humor.

Okay, kiddies, imagine this. Four people review your story—an anonymous reviewer who spells any word longer than three letters wrong, your friend, a person who says nice things about every story they read, and a "flamer" known for telling the truth. Now, who do you believe? Come on, it's multiple choice. Not that hard.

3. _Quote grammar_

Because I've seen even very good, literate authors make this mistake. Just about every talentless hack in the business makes it, too. Hell, so did I.

Right then, quote grammar. These are all wrong:

"_Blah, blah, blah." He said._

"_Blah, blah, blah." he said._

"_Blah, blah, blah," He said._

This is right:

"_Blah, blah, blah," she said._

This is also right:

"_Blah, blah, blah." Her voice was strained._

Got that? Okay, good. Hopefully, you'll look a little less retarded next time you try to inflict your words upon the populace.

_4. Taylor Swift_

I've got nothing against her personally, nor against her music.

I'm just really, really sick of Taylor Swift songfics.

Since I've arrived in this fandom (much to the chagrin of everybody else), there have been five of them. _Five._ Possibly more that I haven't noticed_._ Within a few months. I'm not even going to talk about the ones that were here before, oi, geez…

Just a question, though, since I just _know_ I'm going to get a double helping of flames for having this subsection and am assuming a few fans will be here to answer it: really, why? I know that ridiculously sappy romance songs are easy to make into ridiculously awful A/H 'stories', but…why her, specifically? It's not a rhetorical question, I really want to know. Is it like Evanescence is with bad angst fics? Is it just another fad that I happened to have completely missed due to being allergic to daylight? Seriously, _what?_

--

And so concludes the Longest 'Chapter' In This Nonfic. Due to my easily annoyed nature, and burning love of complaining about things in general, there will undoubtedly be a similar 'chapter' some time in the foreseeable future. Isn't that just absolutely _fantastic?_


	15. Quasi Shakespeare Fails Again

Step Fourteen: Poetry

Okay, big shocker time:

A poem is more than just a collection of words assembled in lines. OMGWTFBBQ.

Kay? Poetry is an art form, and you can't just go and fuck with that because you're too lazy to write prose.

You wanna write a poem? Fine. Learn how to write a poem. Just because senseless gibberish is in the shape of a poem doesn't mean it is one. It's worse in other fandoms, but it's here too, and it's starting to piss me off. I'm not particularly into poetry, but I'm feeling indirectly insulted by these balls of fail I see running around.

I know very little about how to write good poetry, it's true. But you'd have to be some kind of moron not to realize that something like this:

'_I'm in love with him,_

_But does he love me back?_

_Our love could never work,_

_So why does it feel so right?_

_I'd do anything to be with him,_

_Would he do the same for me?'_

is _not a goddamn poem._ Poems have rhythm, poems have rhyme, poems have vision, poems have meaning, poems are oft considered the highest achievement in words because of the difficulty in writing them, poems have at least one of the above—that _thing_ is none of that. I don't know how to get any clearer. It's beyond bad writing, it's a monstrosity that needs to be destroyed before it rises up against humanity. Seeing stuff like this makes me want to bang my head against my desk until I lose consciousness. This shit is _that bad_, ladies and gentlemen. That bad. I'd thought I had become completely desensitized to whatever fanfic throws at me, but _this_…this is truly incomprehensible.

No more of this idiocy, please. For the sake of my brain cells and the good of the free world, stop this bullshit. Stop giving poetry a bad name. Stop pretending to be artistic. Just stop. Learn poetry. And try again.


	16. My eyes, THEY BLEED

Step Fifteen: Formatting

_WARNING: There are high levels of IRONY in this chapter. Those sensitive to irony or any of its compounds, please consider clicking the back button immediately._

This was originally supposed to be in the Minor Quibbles chapter. But looking around in some of the more eye-burning archives on this site has convinced me that this lovely aspect of fandom deserves its own section.

Author noting in the middle of the prose. Especially for really stupid things. For example, something happens, and the Reader is drifting through the text aimlessly, reserving judgment, until suddenly, there's this jarring, horrible, bolded text that goes something like **(A/N: Hay guyz! Lol, isn't that such a good A/H setup? Don't worry, that's coming soon, cuz they are just sooo totally MADE for each other!)**.

It must be some kind of sin to type like that. May the lord have mercy on my soul for even giving it as an example.

On the topic of Things In The Text That Shouldn't Be, the following will immediately make my Bullshit Detector spike:

-Point of View switches (Artemis's POV, Mary Sue's POV). There is such a thing as third person. USE IT (Ironically, the ever-amusing Stephenie Meyer used first person throughout her delightful series and switched the point of view—complete with labels—a total of five times).

-Flashbacks being denoted as large, bolded text reading 'FLASHBACK'.

* * *

_**FLASHBACK**_

_The Reader scanned over the list of fanfics, eventually selecting one called 'How Not to Write Fanfiction'. _

_**END FLASHBACK**_

* * *

And another thing I simply detest about fanfic is that there are these people who don't think italic is quite enough to emphasize something, and decide to bold or underline it to make **absolutely sure** that we completely understand that something is **IMPORTANT**.

Or for that matter, writing the whole text as bold/underline/italic. Now, usually I can pinpoint exactly why fanfic authors do something stupid, but this is just mindlessness so epic that my feeble mind cannot comprehend it. Well, while sober, anyway.

And another thing: what the hell is up with randomly centering all the text? I did that when I was about seven or eight because I liked it when everything was all pretty and lined up nicely. Is that what kind of mentality we have here? It's really starting to depress me, people.

Or how about this strange thing I've noticed about people pressing enter at the end

of each line, like in poetry. It ends up looking all nasty and difficult to read when

uploaded to FFN. See, I bet you're starting to get kind of annoyed reading this

paragraph because of the senseless division, now aren't you?

Have your eyes exploded yet? Have they shriveled up in your head, perhaps deciding that enough is enough, they're tired of living in your eye-sockets? If they have, rest assured that mine have as well when I typed this chapter. Unfortunately, by opening this fic you have signed an electronic waiver, rendering me unsueable. Sorry.

So people, let the irritatingness of this chapter serve as a lesson to all you format abusers: just leave that poor fucking Word toolbar alone. Our eyes are already in severe pain from reading the words themselves; we don't need anything making this any more painful for us.


	17. Moar Minor Quibbling

Step Sixteen: Minor Quibbles Part Duex

_1._ _Replying to reviews at the bottom of the chapter._

It used to make sense when there was no review reply function on this site. Now, as you probably have noticed, there is a 'reply' button next to all reviews. Failure to use it denotes either a mind-boggling ineptness so deep that clicking a link and typing a message is beyond your technical skill, or simply means that you are trying to pad the length of the story to get more readers.

And don't give me any of that 'answering questions' nonsense, either. If you're an author worth your salt, you'll sneak it into the prose and leave it at that.

_2. Muses._

This is a growing trend that is really starting to tick me off. You've got these people who think it's _cute _to give their writing inspiration a name and have it talk with them everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Reviews, disclaimers, author notes, profiles, you name it, there's a fucking muse in it. And you know, split-personality disorder is fine, everybody has problems and I can't exactly complain about other people's mental illnesses, but for the love of god, stop trying to act cute with them.

You are not cute.

You are not funny.

Repeat these lines to yourself until you no longer have the urge to stick that freakin' muse everywhere.

Or at least manifest it as something more original than a wolf, wouldya?

_3. Screwing around in the disclaimer_

I've already mentioned that I think disclaimers are unnecessary and pointless—because I can guarantee you that if there's some out-of-work lawyer with too much free time on his hands reading fanfiction, he'll be far too busy calling songfics on their copyright infringement to care about a missing disclaimer. One of the reasons for this is that people like to use the disclaimer as an opportunity to be cute and funny, of which, as we have already discussed, you are neither.

Generally it's some kind of conversation with their _muses_, or if the author hasn't quite fallen so far, a conversation with the author's favorite character/friend/third party of some kind. They usually go something like this:

"Author: Hi!

Author's muse/favorite character/friend/Mary Sue/third part entity: Welcome to the show!

Author: We hope you enjoy.

Author's muse/favorite character/friend/Mary Sue/third part entity: Wait, you're forgetting something.

Author: Oh, you mean the obligatory annoying fangirling over my favorite character? I have the Artemis Fowl plushie here and everything.

Author's muse/favorite character/friend/Mary Sue/third part entity: Uh, no.

Author: The stupid in-joke that only I and a few of my friends think is funny?

Author's muse/favorite character/friend/Mary Sue/third part entity: …no.

Author: Oh. You mean…that. But…but I DON'T WANNA!

Author's muse/favorite character/friend/Mary Sue/third part entity: Say it!

Author: Wahhhhh, I don't want to! It's painful!

Author's muse/favorite character/friend/Mary Sue/third part entity: Just say it so we can get on with it.

Author: Oh, fine…-sigh- I do not…_sob_…own Artemis Fowl. There! I SOLD my SOUL. I hope you're happy. Anyway, on with the story!"

Something like that, except a lot longer, more improper spelling, and twice as fangirly.

DON'T DO THAT, YOU OVERLY TALKATIVE, BRAINDEAD FANGIRL. I apologize for the capsrape, but for god's sake, we've already discussed the merits of just shutting up every once in a while, haven't we? Your story is causing us enough pain as it is, we do not need a small glimpse of the inner workings of your mind to add to it. If you're so utterly convinced that you're absolutely HILAAAAAARIOUS and just _need_ to share your wit with the rest of the world, then do what I did and write shitty scriptfic until it's out of your system.

…just, make sure to also do what I did and delete them later.

_4. Irrational fear of the word 'said'._

The beauty of the word said is that it's invisible. In rapid-fire dialogue where you're just using verbs to differentiate between who's speaking, said is basically the only way to go, along with 'asked' and 'replied' for occasional variation. Even in normal dialogue, said should make up about 75% of speaking verbs. About 25% of those can have adverbs without pushing it. The actual numbers are probably different, but you get my point—said is the standard speaking verb for a reason, and that reason is that it works.

Everybody and their mother's fourth grade teacher said otherwise, but guess what? Your fourth grade teacher was a moron.

Overusing said does not make the text 'boring'. Avoiding said, however, makes the text absurd. Still not convinced? Stephenie Meyer uses the word murmured more often than said and even then with adverbs. Stephenie Meyer _also_ used 165 adjectives to describe her male lead in the first book alone, used the word chagrin an alarming number of times, and generally mucked around with language to the point of no return. Get the picture? Yeah, I thought so.

_5. Wanton Abuse of the Common Comma_

Let's talk about commas.

The comma is a gentle creature; peaceful, with an unassuming presence and a cautious nature. It makes its home between clauses, in front of introductory phrases, between lists and near certain conjunctions, with smaller herds breaking off and living elsewhere. Its close relatives—the em dash, the colon and the semicolon—while rarer, are also larger and more distinctive, having similar tendencies and temperament. Fascinatingly enough, its closest biological equivalent, the period, which looks almost exactly like the comma, displays a far more aggressive personality and fierce pride, always making its territory clear and presence obvious.

This is natural. Part of life. But the problems begin when bad fanfic authors take this innocent beast and misuse it.

In most places in the world, the comma alternately suffers neglect and abuse at the hands of its owners. Yanked from its ancestral home and stuck into strange and unfamiliar territory, it does not know how to support itself and survive. While steps have been taken to preserve and cultivate these poor creatures, they prove largely ineffective due to lack of public interest.

Join the Purple Ribbon Foundation for the Preservation of Commas. Show that you care.


	18. The Reason They Laugh at You

Step Seventeen: How Not To Write Humor

Humor is a funny thing (pun not intended—honest). You can be absolutely crappy at it and get hundreds of reviews while the good, quality fics gather dust. I actually did a project to see if people would buy it—I called it 'I Will Not' and pretended that it was worth the bandwidth it used up. It takes me approximately thirty-seven seconds to do a 'chapter' for it and it has over 400 reviews. (EDIT: Scratch that, it now has over 500 reviews. Good god. DOUBLE EDIT: Now it's over 600. Make of that what you will)

So yes, aspiring badfic authors. Shitty humor fics = reviews. And we all know fanfiction is just a Review Count contest, right? Forget the fact that 'review' implies somebody considering your work and judging its quality, you just want a whole lot of them, right?

So here's a handy guide that will make a shitty humor fic that gets a lot of reviews into a somewhat less-shitty humor fic that gets a LOAD of reviews!

Contrary to the above evidence, being funny is hard. From my numerous failed attempts, I would know. However, from the long hours (read: few minutes) I spend thinking of ways to make some sad, sad soul out there laugh, I have at least figured out some things not to do.

1. Parody…or not

The concept of a parody is to exaggerate what is already there, not just make shit up. If you like, I could come over to your house with a hammer and chisel and engrave this legend into your skull. Or, for the less willing to commit, perhaps write it on your forehead with permanent marker. Whichever works.

The word 'parody' gets thrown around a lot, so this is just me saying it's not the same as 'crackfic'.

And something else I've noticed about Parody Gone Wrong is exaggerating too much. Mary Sue parodies tend to be especially guilty; so much that the parodies are actually worse than the stories. Though with Mary Sue parodies, it's often the fact that the author is parodying the wrong thing, eg: the Sue's annoyingness rather than her ridiculous perfect.

2. Widespread OOCness

It's not funny if everybody is doing it. You get these failtacular piles gibberish consisting of everybody acting KERRAAAAAZZZEEEEEE!!!11!!!11 and having KERRAAAAAZZZEEEEEE!!!11!!!11 fun and acting really OOC, and OOC is funny, right? Of course it's funny, you nitwit! Laugh, I say! Laugh at the delicious madness! LAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGHHHH!

(Oho, c wut i did thar?)

3. And on that note, randomness

Much like good prose, there is a method to having good randomness. Contrary to popular belief, there is more to it than yelling 'CHEESE!' or other associated dairy products every few lines. Crackfic is an art—study it, learn from it, and leave the exclamations of random dairy foods to a minimum.

4. The fourth wall.

Learn when to annihilate it with a wrecking ball. Learn when the damn thing needs some time to lay some new brickwork. Find this balance and you will prosper.

5. Author insertion

…*sigh*

This technically falls under the 'Fourth Wall' heading, but I just had to make another section for this. This is a really popular gimmick I've seen around. I'm not talking about Mary Sue Author Inserts masquerading as 'normal girls', I mean literally the author inserting herself into the humor fic and interacting with the canons for the purpose of entertainment.

And I won't say that this is completely taboo and stories which involve it need to be set on fire, mostly because I do this…a LOT. Not so much anymore, but I haven't gotten around to removing the fics in which I do, so I suppose it still counts.

But damn, a lot of people do it badly. Including me. You know how they do it badly? Narcissism. That's all there is to it. They start bringing themselves in, and suddenly they're the one doing all the 'funny' stuff and the canons just kind of comment on it. It also involves a lot of references to 'the Almighty Authoress' and the omnipotent nature of said authoress. See? Narcissism. Then people get bored, because they want to see so-and-so doing stuff, not you doing stuff, and then they leave. Without reviewing. And like I said, if you don't have reviews, you have nothing. NOTHING, I SAY. NOTHING.

So please, don't do it unless you know how. And if you are reading this guide for any purpose other than killing time and getting a few cheap laughs, chances are you don't know how.

…Man, I get a lot of reviews about how I made people laugh while cringing in recognition of their own grievous faults, and I think I just did that to myself. Wow. This is new.


	19. The Gayest Chapter in the Whole Fic

Step Eighteen: Dem's Handy-Dandy Super-Effective Guide to Slash

It has come to my attention that I have been shying away from the topic of slash for the last…eh, twenty chapters or so. But worry not, dear readers! The long awaited chapter on the art of having two males boink each other has finally arrived. It's gonna be sweet.

But before we begin, a note: some of you may think that this chapter is, in fact, a satire meant to mock certain practices used by slashfic authors to force two "hawt" male characters together in order to satisfy their sick fangirly needs. Be aware that this is _not_, I repeat, _not_ in ANY way whatsoever my intention with this chapter. At all.

Now, with that out of the way, let the butt-love commence!

_Step the First: Terminology_

Many a slash reader has encountered something they didn't want to encounter out of sheer ignorance of the terminology. Here are some terms to get you started:

Yaoi: Slash Japanified. It generally involves teh secks, and since everybody knows two males doing things with their ding-dongs to each other is THE HAWTEST THING EVAR, this is a good thing. If it is labeled as 'Yaoi', click it, regardless of anything that may make you think otherwise.

Shounen-ai: Slash Japanified and then watered down. Generally does not involve teh secks, which makes it automatically inferior to yaoi.

Het: Heterosexual romance. Since it involves a male and a female in a romantic way, it is obviously not worth your time. Don't bother giving fics not labeled 'yaoi' or 'shounen-ai' or at least 'slash' more than a cursory glance. (Unless, of course, they happen to be A/H, but by now that's obvious, right?)

Mpreg: Male pregnancy. Not horrific in any way whatsoever—in fact, it's cute and makes total biological sense! Male characters getting pregnant and all jazzed up on progesterone (which is totally a chemical naturally present in the male body) is fun and more importantly, satisfies a whole host of fangirl fantasies.

Protip! If your story features two popular male characters interacting with each other in any way whatsoever, label it 'slash', or better yet, 'yaoi'. (Yaoi is better because it's Japanese, and everybody knows that Japan is the best country in the entire universe). It doesn't matter if said interaction is limited to a two-sentence phone call; it still counts.

_Step the Second: Recognizing Slash in Canon_

Despite what you may think, slash is always present in every fictional work ever (it's in the non-fictional ones, too). If you can't see it, obviously you aren't squinting hard enough. Now let's put on our Slash Goggles and take a look!

Friends: With benefits, that is! No two male characters can be friends, ever. If you spend time around another person, after a day or two you will inevitably get the strong, unrelenting desire to tear their clothes off and have a wild night of teh secks with them.

Brothers: Same as above, except it's OMG FORBIDDEN!!1!!11 and therefore, really kinky.

Enemies: Even hawter than incest slash, because this one has the added bonus of violence and abuse! Without a doubt, while they're screaming insults at and trying to kill each other, they are secretly pining away after an unattainable lover. They spend their nights angsting about how unrequited their love is and how aesthetically pleasing the other is. Do not doubt it. It is so.

Tentacle: Oops, how'd that one get in there? NEVARMIND.

In general, if two male characters spend any amount of time in each other's presence, they are madly in love with each other [1]. If the two male characters actually have a close, non-romantic relationship, they've been secretly boinking for years and only pretending to be platonic. If two male characters have never met and will never meet, worry not! That's what AUs are for. Anything in pursuit of something to fap to—_I mean, _a beautiful, meaningful romance that totally makes sense.

[1. Can also apply to two female charactes, if you swing that way.]

_Step the Third: Writing the Slash_

Anything goes.

Just the fact that it's slash will justify everything. People who don't like it are just homophobes, so be sure to use that against them if somebody reviews negatively.

_Step the Fourth: Teh Secks_

Twelve-year-old virgin who wants to write a sex scene? No worries! Just write whatever you kind-of sort-of think sounds believable. Everybody will praise you and love the lemony goodness. Just ignore those mean flamers who say that everything you just described was disgusting and physically impossible! They're probably Republicans or something equally heinous.

_Step the Fifth: Reaping the Fruit of Your Labor_

Sit back, enjoy some lemonade, and watch the reviews pile up. If there's anything the public likes more than shitty humor, it's slash.

Congratulations! You have now polluted the fandom just a tiny bit more!

--

Now, on a less silly note, since there's always at least one self-righteous wise-arse in the crowd: I am not a homophobe. I am perfectly fine with the idea that there are gay people in the world who boink. This chapter is not an attack on all slash fics, just the really retarded ones. Remember, if you're offended, you're doing it wrong.

I am aware that this chapter does not apply to the Artemis Fowl fandom quite as much as it does to any fandom that originated in Japan, but frankly, I just couldn't resist. Not that AF slash doesn't have its vices as well—notably the fact that slash writers here have the remarkable tendency to labor under the delusion that what they're doing is Extremely Enlightened and that their liberal views on sex and romance are Fresh Ideas and anybody who dislikes it is just a Prude Who Is Stuck In The Past and should Get With The Program.

Newsflash, guys: you aren't. Kindly shut the hell up.

By all means, write your slash. But while doing so, please, _please_ try to retain some common sense.


	20. Red Rover, Red Rover

Crossovers, oh god, crossovers.

I've been putting off writing this chapter. One, because there's a helluva lot of stuff to say about shitty crossovers and I'm concerned that I'll miss some of it, and two, no matter how many times I DID write it, it ended up loaded with actual writing advice rather than my usual snarking. And who the hell would take writing advice from a hack when there's snark to laugh at?

But alas, as self-proclaimed archive-wide crusader against badfic, it is my moral obligation to mortally offend _everybody—_and that includes crossover authors.

Ho-kay. Let's get started then. Our medium: HP/AF.

There are numerous ways you can go wrong. First of all, Artemis's reaction to getting magic. This is the part where you _really have to know the character _to get it right. There's a certain balance between "Hah, I knew it all along, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk" and "derrrrrrOMGWTFBBQ" that must be found.

Next, there's a huge pitfall concerning Artemis's relationship with the HP cast. Just because it's Hogwarts doesn't mean Artemis will lose his icy exterior and join the Slytherin super best friends club. I don't care that he becomes nicer as the series progresses; he will _always _look down on people his age unless they go to great lengths to earn his respect, eg: Holly.

Oh, and concerning the Slytherins—we remember the Draco in Leather Pants fiasco, yes? Well, it applies quite literally here. Rowling demonizes and degrades the Slytherins quite a lot, but that doesn't mean that Crabbe and Goyle are really intelligent and sensitive, Draco is really likable and abused by Lucius, and everybody else is just generally awesome and nice.

**NO**. See that big bolded 'no'? It means that this is Serious Business. Just because it's a crossover doesn't mean you can muck around with _both _canons.

That's the thing with crossovers. You actually have to think about what would happen if this character met that character and how this character would act in that environment and so forth. And you know, I do realize that thinking is a bit of a social taboo in most countries (if not banned entirely), but critical thought is an unfortunate necessity when it comes to crossing over (crossovering?).

Now, plot—a big vice of the crossover genre in terms of plot is making everything too easy—the logic being that Artemis's brains plus his technology plus his magic would be more than enough to resolve the plot earlier than normal and with fewer losses. Well, guess what? It might be logical, but it's boring and still comes off as uncanny. It's bad writing. _Don't do it._

Of course, you can go the opposite direction and have Artemis not affect the plot much at all, which isn't all that plausible—but as for me, I'd much rather have well-written, in character plotless drabbles over a complicated lattice of OOC plot that boils down to nothing.

And another thing, technology: the AF books are largely based on Colfer's technological masturbation. The HP books are largely based on the complete absence of technology—they write with fucking _quills._ I know, I know, you reeeeaaaally want a bunch of "cute" scenes of Artemis explaining cells phones to the dimwitted magical populace, but just…don't. Please.

Crossover shipping. Yeahhhhh…this is another one of those FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NO moments. If you think the underdeveloped mindless A/Hing was bad, folks, that's got nothing on crossover shipping. It goes something like this:

Chapter one: Something is happening in the AF verse.

Chapter two: Something is happening in the other verse.

Chapter three: The verses collide. Artemis meets whatsherface (or in some rather disturbing cases, whathisface).

Chapter four: SEXUAL TENSION SEXUAL TENSION SEXUAL TENSION

Chapter five: MOAR SEXUAL TENSION MOAR SEXUAL TENSION MOAR SEXUAL TENSION

Chapter six: Twwwuuuu wuuuuuuuv

Chapter seven: Plot? _Plot? _Gondor has no plot. Gondor needs no plot.

For those going 'Hey, they aren't THAT bad', I suggest you turn on 'all ratings' and look again.

Those who attempt to subvert the problem of not enough development—not by writing actual development, but by inserting a little stealthy author's note about how they were actually best friends since they were in diapers and were separated for some not-gone-into reason will be summarily keelhauled.

Go on and Google 'keelhauling'.

Yeah, right now.

…

Done yet?

Okay, good.

And in the spirit of punishing literary crimes with violence, next chapter we will have some more of that to make up for the preachy unfunny nature of this one.


	21. Intermission II: Violence, Hooray!

1. **A**ll persons who fail to understand that a direct quote ends with a comma, not a period, shall be shot.

2. **A**ll persons who refer to themselves, their proxy, their self-insert Mary Sue, or otherwise literary equivalent as crazy, random, weird, insane, deranged or any other synonym for the word 'abnormal' shall be doused with oil, dropped in the Sahara desert at midday, and then shot.

3. **A**ll persons who in any way, shape or form refer to an iPod in their writing shall have their ticklish spots covered in honey, left in a nest of ants, and then shot a few hours later.

4. **A**ll persons who depict Artemis Fowl as a casual family man/typical teenager/passionate lover/etc. shall have their limbs tied to horses, the horses sent running in opposite directions, and the limbs then individually shot.

5. **A**ll persons who use broken Japanese when no Japanese ought to be used shall be shot, shot again, and then shot another time just to make sure.

6. **A**ll fools who use boredom or laziness to excuse their literary atrocities shall be pitied by Mr. T, and then shot.

7. **A**ll persons who insist on conversing with any imaginary manifestation in the author notes/disclaimers/etc of their literary work shall have large aquatic mammals dropped on them from significant heights, and then shot.

8. **A**ll persons who write author notes which supersede the length of the written work shall be sent via time travel to the medieval era accompanied by a pointed hat, broom and black cat. They shall then be shot.

9. **A**ll nonbelievers who write in first person when first person ought not to be written in shall be shunned by unicorns and then shot.

10. **A**ll persons who fail to understand that the world does not revolve around America shall be forced to read Twilight, and then shot. The book shall then be shot no less than three dozen times.

11. **A**ll persons who fail to understand that a sickly, pale, wimpy, scathing nerd is not incredibly sexy to all females within a ten mile radius shall have their names written very dramatically in black notebooks. If a heart attack does not follow in 40 seconds, they shall instead be shot.

12. **A**ll persons who fail to understand that telling a disenchanted reviewer 'don't like, don't read' is a logical impossibility shall be bludgeoned to death by trolls with very large clubs, and then shot.

13. **A**ll persons who laughed at the Freudian slip in #12 shall have telemarketers call them every day at dinner for the rest of their lives until insanity begins to set in, at which point they shall be shot.

14. **A**ll persons who insist on constantly referring to themselves as the 'Almighty Authoress' shall be mocked by French people, and then shot.

15. **A**ll persons who at any point use inside jokes in their writing shall be tarred and feathered and then shot. And none of that sissy, non-fatal tarring and feathering they did in the nineteenth century, I mean good old fashioned sizzling third-degree-burns-all-over-your-body, die-within a-few-days-of-horrible-agony tarring and feathering. They shall, prior to death, be shot.

16. **A**ll persons who can only think of the word 'mismatched' when referring to heterochromia shall be slapped repeatedly with a wet fish and then shot.

17. **A**ll persons who think irony means 'any kind of funny little coincidence' shall have schoolteachers whack them with yardsticks until they get it right and apologize. They shall shortly afterwards be shot.

18. **A**ll persons who believe there is an appropriate synonym for 'eyes' that should be used often and extensively shall be locked in a room with the Caramelldansen video being played on an infinite loop. Shooting will commence shortly before suicide begins to seem like a good option.

19. **A**ll persons who find it perfectly logical and reasonable for Artemis to say 'd'arvit' when swearing shall be forced to house a college student and/or large horse in their bathrooms for the rest of their lives. Sometimes, shooting is just not enough.

20. **A**ll persons who believe that fanfiction is Serious Business shall have large cartoon boxing gloves emerge from their computer screens and punch them in the face.

…

Wait. Oh shi—

**TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.**

**PLEASE STAND BY.**

**DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET.**

--

I apologize profusely for this. Hey, I promise violent silliness, I produce violent silliness. Anyway, this whole stupid 'guide' is mostly for entertainment purposes, so I suppose it evens out. All persons who ask what the references were to shall be sighed exasperatedly at and told to Google it.


	22. Self Control: Why It Is a Good Thing

Step Twenty: Publishing

Some people write because they're paid for it. Some people write because they're full to bursting with ideas and sketches and scenarios and need to get them down before they explode. Some people write for catharsis. Some people write because it's fun. Some people write to get to know themselves. But most people—on this site, anyway—write because they're a bunch of narcissistic publishing whores.

And no, I don't mean all of you. Just the really shitty authors. We'll get to that later.

I have this thing that I do. It's kind of weird.

What I'll do is, I'll open up Word, or if I'm incapable of that, a notebook. And then what I'll do is I'll write. Just something. That idea I've been mentally plotting, some random character study, just something, you know?

And then you know what I do?

I close the window and forget about it.

Or, alternately, edit it, read over it, edit it again, save it, go to bed still obsessing over further ideas, spend the next several weeks mentally playing everything out, constantly bringing up the file and adding this or tweaking this and just generally let it take over my life…

…and then, when it's finally done, when I can't look at it without getting this goofy smile and wonderful sense of accomplishment, when I feel a little more justified in calling myself a writer…

…_then_ I'll close the window and forget about it.

Why? Oh, I've got my reasons, but I somehow doubt any of you care, so we won't get into that.

You don't actually have to publish everything you write.

I'm sure you're all absolutely floored by this development, but it's true. Just because you wrote it doesn't mean you have to punish the rest of the world. A large number of drabble-fics are guilty as hell for this (not all, for god's sake, NOT ALL), because the author in question will look at all those successful drabble-fics out there and think, "Hey! I want hundreds of reviews, too!" and immediately rush to pump out shitty drabbles. And of course, with dozens of reviews praising them for being 'insightful' and 'deep', it only just keeps going, because people _do not know when to stop._

Or there's hypocrites like me, who'll get "sugar high" or be "bored" one day and bang on their keyboards like the wild chimps that they are until something resembling a crackfic comes out. Then they'll go and publish the train wreck, and when the drooling, slack-jawed knuckle-draggers all love it, they keep going at it, pumping out shit after shit after shit. Exhibit A: 'I Will Not'. Look at the review count (nearing 500). Look at the effort expended (almost none). LOOK AT IT. Admittedly, it was entirely intentional, but still. Weep for the future of the human race, friends, weep and despair, for there is reason enough.

Look. If you want to publish something you're iffy with, that's fine. If you can actually get these hordes of mindless morons to give you a helpful review, that's even better! If you want to write something solely for the purpose of publishing, then you have some screwed up priorities, but are fully welcome to do so as long as your writing isn't utter crap. That's not the sort of thing I'm referring to. I'm talking about people with this thought process:

_Hmm, I'm bored/I'm sugar high/it's two AM. Let's write something!_

_*writes something*_

_Wow, this really sucks. I'm gonna post it online anyway and everybody will love it! It'll make me look more influential if I have more stories published! And if anybody complains, I'll just say I was bored and that they're flamers! Teehee!_

Please, readers. People who publish fanfics like this are the number one threat to fanfiction society. People who TRY on their fanfics are merely bad authors—most are just lazy. Show some restraint. Show some self control. Every once in a while, just don't click the publish button. Just _don't. _

Just_ keep it to yourself._

_**PLEASE.**_

Do I have to pass out 'Say No to Wanton Publishing' ribbons?


	23. Pheblotinum 101

Step Twenty-One: Plot Devices

Where would the story be without plot devices? Standing around in the corridor awkwardly twiddling its thumbs, that's where. Notable canonical plot devices include magic, obscure fairy customs, inexplicable moral reforms, and the ever-shrinking rarity of geniuses.

And it only gets worse from there, kids. Just look at some of the pathetic plot devices I see in fanon:

1. Artemis's parents decide that he needs to be more 'social'. Because Artemis is the exact sort of person who bends to his parent's every whims, this leads to Artemis going to public school, Artemis getting a girlfriend, Artemis taking up a sport, Artemis joining an exchange program, and generally abandoning 90% of everything that made him likable.

2. Holly has _changed_ him. In fact, not only has she changed his OMG EBUUULLLLL ways, she has also caused him to lose 50 IQ points, begin wearing skinny jeans and black t-shirts, speak casually and eat at McDonalds.

3. Just about anything that changes Holly into a human or Artemis into an elf. Magic, science, bored goddesses (never gods, just goddesses. Usually goddesses of love who are A/H fangirls. Go figure), spontaneous unexplained species change, the wicked machinations of the ever-recurring Opal Koboi, the will of the Banana King, you name it, shippers consider it a viable reason. Generally used to push our protagonists together without having to bother with things like having a sufficient bond to overcome the species barrier. Also, people who are squicked out by cross-species relationships and still like A/H, kind of like genderbending to make a slash pairing possible. I'm sure that reading this paragraph has brought several authors that have done it well to mind, but, _again—_this does not apply to good authors.

4. Holly coming to visit Fowl Manor. I absolutely loathe this one. Oh, there'll be some contrived reason for it that falls apart at the slightest application of logic, but it just boils down to more of shipper's idiocy.

5. Any situation in which Artemis is in a purely social situation with Holly. Notably dance!fics. I have only one thing to say on the topic of dance!fics, and it is this: no. Just no.

Alright, so, plot devices. You throw one at the plot, and suddenly, stuff starts happening! Like _magic!_ But plot devices can rot. They go moldy and festering and then things start exploding. Yes, exploding, because moldy festering things set on fire tend to explode. Little known fact. But, there is good news—you can prevent this.

How, you ask?

Well, I'll be honest. It's going to hurt, and it's going to hurt a lot. In fact, you may go mad from the sheer intensity of the effort of doing this, but it'll be worth it. To prevent plot devices from rotting, there is one thing that you have to apply to it liberally—

Logic.

_GASP._

Yes, my friends, the dreaded enemy: logical analysis. Indeed, this is a compound so potent, so volatile, that alchemists over the centuries have had their labs blown up on a regular basis trying to experiment with it. Whole universes have collapsed in its presence. However, this powerful force, when harnessed and used properly, can do wonders for—well, just about everything, really. Plots, characters, name it, logic will probably help it. In fact, several marketing whizzes over at the Very Big Corporation of America have caught onto this, and told their engineers to get logic into a spray-on can and charge huge amounts of cash for each. While the engineering team develops it, the marketing people have been arguing over what to call it for the past four years (The current popular choices are Dullard's Savior, which some are saying is too negative, and Thoughtful Analysis In-a-Can, which the others are calling too simplistic), so we can expect to be able to buy easy-on cans of our very own logic as early as 2015.

What? Me? Being paid for product placement? Don't be silly.

But all corporate jabs aside, seriously guys: thinking helps. Money-back guarantee.


	24. Some Further Minor Quibbling

Step Twenty-Two: Some Further Minor Quibbling

Alright, I admit it, now I'm just looking for an excuse to use the word 'quibble'. Quibble. Isn't it a lovely word? It's up there with 'yokel', 'syllogism', and 'exsanguinate'.

_1. "Their" Oak Tree_

How many times have you seen an A/H story where "their" oak tree is mentioned? Perhaps they are sitting under it, enjoying a sunset or something? Perhaps they have agreed to meet there? Perhaps they share their first kiss or first time under it?

Maybe you're the one who wrote it?

Well, if you have, shame on you, because "their" oak tree is a trend that is seriously starting to piss me off. Oh, to hell with _starting to_, it's been pissing me off since I first saw it.

Do I _really _have to spell it out, guys? I do? Okay, here goes.

The place where your boyfriend once kidnapped you is not romantic in the same way CPR is not romantic (SIDE NOTE: Yes, CPR is not in the slightest romantic. If you have ever experienced it, or for that matter had any common sense, you would know that it could never, ever, ever be honestly mistaken for kissing, even if you did just almost die and need CPR and are confused and in love with the person giving said CPR). It just…isn't. You think it is, but it's not. Can we agree on this? Because I just don't see how to elaborate on this any further. The oak tree where they first "met" is not romantic. I can see no conceivable way for it to be romantic in any way whatsoever. Okay? Okay.

And not only is it not romantic, it's illogical, too. That oak tree is not particularly close to Fowl Manor. It's a long drive and a longer walk away. It is neither convenient nor desirable to go there just to 'hang out'. There is in fact absolutely nothing about it that has any appeal or sense to it besides fangirls' silly romanticized notions.

So quit it, before I storm over there and throw the logic in your face in the form of a steadily burning review.

_2. Overlabeling_

This is just something that annoys the crap out of me, not to mention makes summary hunting a real pain. In larger archives, I've taken to ignoring the summary entirely, barring a cursory glance at its general coherency, and just going on genre and character list. Overlabeling can mean anything from spending the whole summary 'classifying' the fic, despite the fact that there is absolutely no necessity for doing so, or misleading labeling. Like labeling something A/H when it isn't. Like labeling something slash when it isn't. Like labeling something Better Than It Sounds when it isn't.

And why do be people do it? In the former, it's because they're stupid newbs, in which case they should be laughed at and ridiculed. In the latter, it's because the author is a conniving little weasel who knows that it works in terms of getting more readers.

And by god, it does.

People like romance. (I don't. I think it's overrated, overdone, and overexposed and only indulge in it in very specific circumstances. I'm currently trying to figure out some way to view only fanfics that aren't romance. But then, I don't think I quite qualify as 'people', so back on topic.) People like romance and any hint of said romance will make them read.

Especially if we're in anime/manga and the romance is yaoi. Always with the yaoi.

So of course the so-called authors of this website are going to take advantage of that.

People do it because they're either stupid or review whores. That's all there is to it. And I'm still not sure which one annoys me more.

_3. Dancefics_

You—you know what?

Fuck you.

That is all.

_4. Making Trouble act like—_

**REWIND REWIND REWIND**

_3. Dancefics_

Okay, not really.

But seriously, dancefic authors, I meant both words of that sentiment and I meant them vehemently. I'm sick of your shippy BS, I'm sick of your astonishing numbers, I'm sick of your disgusting fangirly natures and I'm sick of the fact that you exist at all. Dancefics are, quite frankly, one of the worst things in this archive. If I were obsessed enough to print one of them out and set it on fire, I would. And I'd do it in public while screaming obscenities at the sky. I'd sell tickets and make a little show out of it. I'd probably serve snacks. In fact, I might do it every day with a different theme. Thursday would be barbecue night. Badfic and steak on the grill. Fridays I'd have a little pagan ritual sacrifice to the goddess of Not Being a Fuckwit. Saturday I'd collect a bunch at once and have a bonfire night. Because yes, I _am_ that crazy. If you see one, review it, and do so honestly (which pretty much guarantees that it'll be a flame if you have any sense) because these compact little explosions of failure need to be hunted down and destroyed, lest they come alive and kill us all.

And they would, too. Mark my words, they_ would. _Which is why we must _kill them. _Kill them with _fire. _

(You may feel free to ignore my warning about a collection of words on a computer screen coming alive and terrorizing the populace, but when you're cowering under your kitchen table waving a broomstick around in a vain attempt to fight one off, don't come crying to me.)

My totally viable dancefics=zombies theory aside…

I don't even know what else to say about these things. A dancefic is, obviously, a dance. It always has A/H in it. It always takes place at Fowl Manor, which, as you'll remember, is not actually a house, but rather a playground. It's usually Angeline who does it all because she "wants Artemis to be more social". Angeline is also apparently a ditzy society wife who has absolutely nothing better to do than to throw giant parties for the tiniest occasion and she obviously does not do anything silly like limiting the guest list to humans.

And Minerva is apparently in the habit of going halfway across Europe to crash society parties, having nasty, horrible blond hair (which is, of course, an unforgivable crime in fanfic land), clinging to Artemis's arm and pretending to be his girlfriend, being French at people, and being generally out of character (to the complete non-issue of the reviewers). Because we all know that Not Holly + Sort-of-Love Interest = Deserving of homicide.

And Holly is apparently allowed to take party invitations to the surface. Totally. This is in no way contradictory to everything we know about the books. Yep. Not at all.

And of course Foaly will use this opportunity to play matchmaker. Because obviously he has nothing better to do than instigate teenage drama. Obviously.

And when Angeline meets Holly? Pshaw. The classic Meet the Parents scene will not be different from the norm at all, despite the fact that Holly is a fairy three times older than Angeline.

Yep. Nothing wrong with any of that at all. Not in the slightest.

**FAST FORWARD**

_4. Making Trouble act like Root_

It seems to me that some people in this fandom are under the impression that Root acts the way he does because he's commander, not because it's part of his personality, and that any person inheriting the title of commander will suddenly take on Root's mannerisms and habits.

I can't tell you how many times I've read Trouble going in a fanfic, "SHORT! GET IN HERE!"

And I'm sitting there, staring at the screen, thinking…WHY?

Why is it that fanfic authors have this compulsion to make Trouble a less dead version of Root? Why does Trouble not have a personality? Why is his fanfic personality an exact replica of Root's? I'm pretty sure no fanfic has yet gone so far to mention Trouble's face turning purple or him smoking a fungus cigar. But it's only a matter of time.

But why do people do it?! Does anybody know? I don't. I can guess. One of my guesses is that the author really liked Root but was unwilling to just canonbend him back from the dead. Another is that they do it almost subconsciously because they're used to the commander being an angry chauvinist. Another is that they are quite simply untalented authors and are unable to give Trouble a personality of his own. But these, like I said, are only guesses, because sometimes fandom idiocy is simply too astonishing to comprehend.

-

Only four quibbles this time to maintain some vestiges of consistency. Also, the others got too long and involved to really be quibbles.


	25. Take Back the Night: Canon Rape

(This is a re-upload. At one point, I replaced some chapters with newer versions, and some files got mixed up, and one chapter was replaced with a completely different one that I never intended to publish, which I realized only just now…after I had already deleted the original. Curse my amateur labeling skills. At any rate, this version is completely different from the original, so if you're really very bored right now, you may as well read it.)

Step Two: Canon Rape

Contrary to popular belief, I know exactly why badfic authors do the stupid shit that they do. Ergo, I know exactly why OOCness happens. Quite clearly, it's because people fall in love with the characters and want to see them do something that is out of line with their personalities and aren't good enough authors to write it in such a way that makes it believable. Several authors _are _good enough to pull it off, and there is absolutely nothing better in the world than fics written by them.

Canon rape is not OOCness.

OOCness is innocent; it's born of a desire to have fun. And while it's not to everybody's tastes, and each person's tolerance for it often varies from fandom to fandom, it is somewhat excusable. That doesn't mean I won't leave a bad review if I find one—it just means I recognize its right to exist. Canon rape, however, is a complete disregard for the author's work, the reader's expectations, and the standards of the literary world in general. Canon rape includes, but is not limited to, the following:

-Artemis being anything besides a supremely self-controlled, somewhat emotionally absent, and socially unknowledgeable genius is like Dr. Pepper without caffeine: blasphemy. Personally, I thought that Artemis was at his best in the first or second book before Colfer started slowly but surely ruining him, but just because the series has begun the slide off the slippery slope doesn't mean you can meet it at the bottom. Artemis does not go to school dances. Artemis does not bend to his mother's every whim. Artemis does not wear blue jeans. Artemis does not listen to modern music. Artemis does not blush intensely and stutter when confronted with a female. Artemis is a difficult character to get spot on—that's why he's so awesome. _So please stop fucking around with his character._

-Holly the whiny, needy romance-obsessed bitch needs to stop, because as you may have noticed, Holly is the antithesis of all things whiny, needy and romance-obsessed. Holly is the type of chick to snort and roll her eyes at girls like that. Holly is the type of girl who would, upon being heartbroken, abandoned and unloved, beat the shit out of the person responsible, sniffle a bit, and go on a violent spree of crime-fighting, ass-kicking and name-taking. Because Holly is awesome and just because you want to write an angsty songfic doesn't mean the character is your bitch.

-And the gold medal of all canon rape goes to—fanon Minerva. This just pisses me off. Now, first off, I am not a fan of Minerva. She is a minor character that I didn't mind and enjoyed reading about because seeing her lose to Artemis so badly was funny. But the way fanon portrays Minerva is just embarrassing. Minerva in canon is extremely ambitious, precocious but not wise (I always thought her name was supposed to be ironic), bratty, and somewhat motherly. Compare to fanon Minerva, who is clingy, whiny, needy, giggly, stupid, obnoxious and snobby. Guys. What the _fuck _is _wrong _with you? Did you even _read _Lost Colony or did you just project hatred onto a blank, blonde canvas and write from there? And the best part? The reviewers love it! As far as the all-important (of course) reviewers are concerned, canon raped, completely OOC and utterly unlike herself Minerva is the bee's knees. Pathetic, people. Just pathetic.

It has been said that there is a fine line between having fun with characters and destroying them. This is not true. The line does not exist, and there are merely gradients of severity.

So stay away from the darker ones, would you? Kthxbai.


	26. Me, Myself and I

First person breeds badfic in the inexperienced and/or wish fulfillment inclined.

That's the first thing you should know. If you're a newbie to this writing thing you probably don't want to be writing in first person, because you will probably fail horribly and be laughed at in front of the whole school while in your underpants.

There's nothing wrong with the style itself. In the right hands, you can get truly amazing writing—much of fanfic sucks, after all, but a surprising amount of it gets even better than the source material. But from what I've seen, there's badfic, and then there's first-person badfic, which is just _so much worse. _Remember, these are general statistics. They do not disprove you, and you do not disprove them.

First person breeds things like…

POV switches! I have unprecedented hate for these. It's hatred to match my hatred of…_people_…who decide that words arranged in lines are poetry. They are awful, and nearly all fics (and I say nearly not because I've seen a good one that does this, but because I am allowing the existence of on account of limited statistics) that have POV switches—by which I mean labeled ones, which generally signal the arrival of a newbie author with extraordinarily clumsy writing—such so much that even the mightiest supermassive black hole would slink away in defeated shame upon seeing one.

They generally look something like this:

_'Once upon a time, Artemis was sitting in his study thinking about Holly._

_ARTEMIS POV_

_I was sitting in my study and thinking about Holly. After all we've been through together, I was falling in love. Me! In love with a fairy! It was this blasted puberty._

_NORMAL POV_

_Holly was flying over Ireland on her way to Fowl Manor. She was glad to be on the surface breathing fresh air, but even more glad to be seeing her favorite Mud Boy._

_HOLLY POV_

_I could feel the wind as I flew over Ireland on my way to Fowl Manor. The surface air was great, but I only wish I could see my true love, Artemis, and tell him of my realization of my love for him._

_ARTEMIS POV_

_Blasted puberty!'_

They also make Mary Sues worse, or at least more pronounced. Whenever I see a first person fic in which circumstances mean that this is an original character who is speaking, I immediately mark the character as a likely Sue and proceed to analyze everything she does from a Suehunter's perspective instead of a readers. This is an accepted cliché in all of fandom, and writing in the perspective of an original character gets this response a lot. Why lower your chances?

This is obviously because one of Mary Sue's distinctions is that she is a better version of the author. When writing the first person of yourself, it's just pretending to be there and writing down your thoughts. This is incredibly lazy, and almost never in any way good writing. Again, _almost _only because I assume that in the wide world of fanfic, somebody MUST have done it well. There's millions of fics on this site alone. Surely somebody knows how to write this well. Surely.

And the most fanfic-specific one here, characterization. OOCness is a classic fanfic flaw, but it is beyond a flaw in first person fic—it's an utter catastrophe. When a deep, complex character normally written in third-person is suddenly written in first person, by even a mediocre author, it nearly uniformly ends in disaster. Yes, disaster. That's not an exaggeration. This kind of writing can get so bad that it actually causes natural disasters across the globe. Tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, all kinds of stuff. It's usually attributed to natural whether patterns, and this is because respected and learned meteorologists are stupid and underestimate the power of really clumsily stuck-together words.

So please. Don't kill thousands with your bad writing. Obtain a clue before trying first person. You can get them at very reasonable prices at your nearest department store.


End file.
